Shame By Steve Jodrell Analysis

The film Shame by Steve Jodrell was released in 1987 and is a prime example of empowerment of women in Australia’s country towns during the 1980s and the consequences both positive and negative. To illustrate the consequences and reasoning for the push for empowerment. The use of pet names towards the women such as “honey” and “sweetheart” are used to put women down as seen in “you can stay at my place love” these pet names are used throughout the text such as “need a push darling” these names are very dismissive of the women in the town and can also be classed as harassment towards the women. Correspondingly throughout the text the boys of the town harass and assault the women an example of this is “do you want to give it to us honey”, this

The text presents empowerment as having a choice, in these circumstances the choice being the persona being a countertop dancer. Choice comes with repercussions. These repercussions can be positive and or negative and, in most cases, you don’t get one without the other. In the text being a countertop dancer leads the persona to feel in touch with herself and her body. The persona uses this to her advantage via the clever writing of Margaret Atwood, this can be seen in “The world is full of men who’d tell me I should be ashamed of myself if they had the chance” the use of emotive language in “ashamed” place a critical role of setting up the idea that the work she does is seen as shameful by not just men but other women. The conversational tone and the dramatic dialogue used further presents the idea that women continuously go against each other as opposed to lifting others up. The idea of self-empowerment is seen throughout the text this is shown in the paradox in “any way” from “Exploited they’d say. Yes, any way you cut it but it I’ve a choice” this shows that. Female empowerment is about choice and not about fitting into a certain stereotype of what you need to do and how you need to act “Exploited” refers to being overworked and underpaid as well as being objectified while “they’d” is in reference to the group of women who criticise the persona and what she does for a living. Through

In “vision” and “desire” the use of emotive language help to understand the feelings of the persona while “timing” tells us that things are not necessarily good or bad. Overall it is seen that the personas work though having led to great outcomes for her empowerment is constantly criticised and looked down upon by men and other